He declared a “new era” and stressed the country’s “great power” in comments that effectively claimed a stature as significant to today’s China as Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping held in theirs. Here are five takeaways.

Cold War attitudes may have motivated U.S. diplomats to simply watch as mass extrajudicial executions spread beyond suspected Communists to target ethnic Chinese, students and union members. Above, President Kennedy with President Sukarno in 1961.

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CreditYuri Gripas/Reuters

• “We really hold the military leadership accountable.”

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was harsh in condemning Myanmar’s reported atrocities against Rohingya Muslims and demanded access to allow a “full accounting.”

Counterterrorism experts say the Islamic State is down, but not out, with an estimated 6,000 to 10,000 fighters in Iraq and Syria; branches in North Africa and Asia; a large online network; and possibly sleeper cells abroad.

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CreditIllustration by Andrew Rae

•Hermit Kingdom? Not exactly.

North Korea’s economy grew 3.9 percent last year, and the country annually generates about a billion dollars in invisible income.

The group, Nxivm (pronounced Nex-e-um), has been operating across the U.S., Canada and Mexico.

Business

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CreditChung Sung-Jun/Getty Images

• More trouble for Samsung: The South Korean police raided its construction arm’s head office in an inquiry into whether Lee Kun-hee, above, the conglomerate’s patriarch and the father of its jailed crown prince, misappropriated funds to renovate his family home.

In the News

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CreditLars Hagberg/The Canadian Press, via Associated Press

• U.S. threats to send in SEAL Team 6 prompted Pakistan’s operation to free an American woman, her Canadian husband and their children from the Taliban-linked Haqqani network. Above, the family is back in Canada. [The New York Times]

• A condolence call from President Trump became a political flash point, after accounts surfaced that he had told the widow of a U.S. soldier killed in Niger that he “knew what he signed up for.” [The New York Times]

• The U.N. refugee agency demanded that Australia step in to avert a humanitarian emergency over the pending, abrupt closure of the Manus Island immigration detention center. Papua New Guinea is threatening to cut off food supplies and forcibly move refugees. [AAP via SBS]

Noteworthy

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CreditKen Blaze/USA Today Sports, via Reuters

• Basketball’s global fans can rejoice: The N.B.A. regular season is here. In the Western Conference, the Warriors face a refueled Rockets squad. In the Eastern, where Cavaliers and Celtics have stockpiled stars. But opening night was surprising, and painful.

Back Story

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CreditMatias Costa for The New York Times

For visitors to Madrid, the starting point is often Plaza Mayor, which is 400 years old this year.

The plaza was created as a city center for the new capital of Madrid, where the Spanish royal court relocated from Toledo in the mid-16th century. Construction began in 1617, during the reign of King Philip III, who is memorialized by an equestrian statue in the center.

The square was built on the site of the market at Plaza del Arrabal, and was later called Plaza de la Constitución, Plaza Real, Plaza de la República and finally Plaza Mayor.

The plaza has seen almost as many fires as it has names. It had to be rebuilt after blazes in 1631, 1670 and 1790. It now consists of three stories, nine archways and 237 balconies.

The site of bullfights, coronations and executions during the Spanish Inquisition, the plaza is now home to shops, restaurants and an annual Christmas market.

Madrid has marked this year’s anniversary with lectures, screenings and music and dance performances. For a few days recently, the plaza was also covered with grass. “I wanted to recover the spirit of that green space,” the artist behind the project, SpY, told El País, citing the plaza’s history as earth and garden.